Missing: a guerrilla theater troupe's star

What happened to Nelson? For nearly all of At Night We Walk in Circles, Daniel Alarcón’s brooding new novel, the fate of this unworldly young actor is unknown. With dreams of his immigration to the United States dashed and his girlfriend living with another man, Nelson is drifting through his early 20s, haunting the cafes of his unnamed Latin American city, which is newly gentrified...

Author Enablers Column by Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry

We have a time-honored tradition of providing our readers with gift book suggestions from noted authors. This year, we’ve decided to put in our own two cents with a list of the very best books—some new and some classics—for the writer in your life, even if that writer is you.The Forest for the Trees (Revised and Updated): An Editor’s Advice to Writers by Betsy...

Writers talking the walk

There is nothing a writer craves more than to be told she is on the right path, that her creative processes and habits will inevitably produce a head-turning work of fiction—and nothing a writer needs more than to be denied that assurance and told firmly by one who knows to get back to work. The Secret Miracle, edited by Peruvian-American novelist Daniel Alarcón, does both.In a Q&A...

Remembering the 'disappeared'

Daniel Alarcón was just a toddler when his family emigrated from Lima, Peru, to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1980. It took his parents, both physicians, four years to finally decide that the growing insurrection by the communist Shining Path posed a greater threat to their family than did whatever cultural adjustments might await them in the...